[She's all but been waiting for this. They have to talk. It might even be better here, rather than in person. It depends on what Markus' preference is, though.]
[He left it open for a reason. Easier to let the other person dictate where they wish to start, if willing.
But Clarke wants something direct, something clarified from the beginning. Knowing her personality, or what he thinks he knows of it, this doesn’t surprise Markus.]
Do you feel guilty about the way you went about helping me?
[It's close enough to the question she had been looking for. It opens things up for her.]
Yes and no. Not for the reasons you'd think.
It bothered me that you made an excuse for it. For what I kept from you. I wasn't under any influence. I just knew what had to be done. What I've had to do before.
[The whole experience was like fire blazing through his memory — burning bright and impossible to forget, but so many details lost in the heat and the flame. And eventually the sorrow.]
Because I implied it would’ve been reasonable for you to protect yourself, even at the risk of harm being done to myself?
[No. He must’ve missed something.]
Or because you think I didn’t recognize your willingness to commit to what you had chosen to do? You said it was easy for you.
[She thinks of pointing a gun at Bellamy to keep him from opening the bunker up. She thinks of his request to make it a kill shot, but she couldn't pull the trigger. Would she have been as kind to Markus, who she only met a little over a month ago? No. Most likely not.
But that is neither here nor there, as it's not relevant.
The people of her world know that she's a killer. A murder.]
The people of my world call me Wanheda. It means "Commander of Death."
There's a tradition in my world by the people who were on the ground waiting for us. Lexa's people. Those who kill mark themselves on their backs for the number of lives they take, both to honor themselves as warriors, and to honor those who died.
Even if I were from that culture, my back would never be big enough to hold the marks for the lives I've taken.
[In the ways that they were similar, the parallels that Markus could draw against himself in both character and inclination, he now sees a darkly stark difference standing there, like a beacon splitting a line down the center. The title she carries, hefted upon her back much like the expectations that weigh upon his own, is not one that would ever fit amongst the pieces and crevices of Markus’ core.
“Death” is too far — beyond a line he can’t comfortably step over, not without becoming that man who had been enveloped with rage, dug up by betrayal and a lack of self control.]
Because you believe it to be necessary.
[That isn’t a question, obviously not framed as one. Hard to approve, but harder still to truly judge — the two mingle and lose themselves in each other, neither winning. ]
Even if there are no marks adorned on your body for each death, they’ll leave traces on you in other ways. You’ve already mentioned it: the guilt.
[The mark of hypocrisy, maybe. But Markus can give this advice easily to others, so detached from the complications centered and his own identity versus his role.]
You always have a choice. Even if you’ve only known one thing for your whole life, a single way of functioning, this doesn’t mean it’s all that will ever define you. Change can be wrought from your own hands, but only if that’s what you really want.
[Did she? It's debatable, lost in the haze of everything that's come before for her. She was sent to the ground (she had no choice). She had to take care of everyone because they weren't prepared (she had no choice). She stepped up into leadership alongside Bellamy, hoping to keep everyone alive (she had no choice).
And when she's tried to give up, she's been dragged back.
And here, now, she sees that things can be different. Would Bellamy really force her back into that? She doesn't think so, but it's who she is.
So, in that, her words become true.]
If I told you the same thing, would you turn your back on people? On me?
That's rhetorical, of course. I know you couldn't.
I don't intend to let the people who did this to us live, Markus. Because otherwise, they might do it again. That, too, is a choice. I made it not long after I got here.
[And now, she reveals the truth. This is who she is. That's what she's declaring to him. Her goal of keeping everyone alive—of helping them survive—is the same.
But that means that when they're done, they're done. This doesn't happen again.]
[A rhetorical question, she says, as if the answer is so straightforward. Of course he wouldn’t turn his back on his people; of course he is bound by duty, pressed forward by obligations and ideals alike.
But that night, in the junkyard, pulling himself out of some wretched trench of mud and rain and lifeless pieces of his own people, he made a choice. Among the rusted groans of a derelict freighter, androids huddled together in shadow, he made a choice. Made the conscious decision that if he had to be weighted down by a purpose greater than who he was as an individual, it would be formed by his own hands and no one else’s.]
I wouldn’t, because I’ve decided that for myself. If I’m confined to my own role, it’s something I’ve built for myself, too. Does that make sense to you?
We don’t know if that’s what it’ll come to, Clarke. You’re choosing a path that still lies too far down the horizon to see.
Acting as if it's too far away is denial, Markus. My people are here. Bellamy and Murphy will always be the focus of what I do, and they shouldn't be here. And if they are, who else might be? Who might show up on a transport one day?
But you see, don't you? How the difference in what we do makes it a choice. In how you and I see things. No, I don't need to go this way, but this is what I've consigned myself to.
That doesn't mean it's easy. But I carry it.
That's why I needed you to see who I was that day. Who I am now.
[Connor had tried to tell Clarke that it didn't have to be this way, too. But it's a part of how she lives, how she breathes. How can she be anything else? How can this go any other way?
Either way, it's a lot to ask someone else to accept the lives taken on their behalf. It had killed Jasper. But no matter what guilt she carries, she doesn't stop.
She is, as ever, Wanheda. Being here has only made that clear to her.]
It isn’t denial. It’s simple reasoning. There are a multitude of unknowns with no solution set before us just yet, but you’re already dictating one for yourself.
[He understands her meaning, that obligation to those who are alike, those you care about, those you have to protect else you become marred and marked by failure. Markus feels that obligation, too, but Clarke is right — they’re different in approach and idealism, and it’s no surprise that Connor’s advice would reflect his own. The tendrils of the revolutionary’s influence.]
But I think that isn’t the point.
You want me to know this about you, but why? Is it because we’re allies? Or is your guilt making you justify yourself to me?
Yes, it's guilt. Partly, anyway. Anyone in my world knows who Wanheda is.
But there's a more direct reason. One day, I may point that gun at someone to help all of us. As an act of the alliance between us.
I was seeking out alliances, Markus. It's the best means of coming up against an enemy, before you begin to call people friends. I just ... tend to do both before long.
[Despite Lexa's initial words when they first began to interact, Clarke has never been able to disassociate from other people. That's why she can't bring herself to make the choice that could give her peace: stop killing. Pretend none of this matters. She started once. That's the life she knows, and the tint of coloring that is all around it.
Nothing can, or will, change that.
If she and Markus are to be friends and allies, Clarke knows her hand may be forced someday. It doesn't take much. He'll have to accept the actions she chooses to take on his behalf, just as she had to do the same when Finn took actions on her behalf.
(No, she would never blame Markus for her actions, just as she doesn't blame herself for Finn's. But as much as Markus is an android, she suspects his ability to disentangle himself from that feeling is rather human.
Perhaps she's wrong.
Perhaps being inhuman in that way gives him a pragmatic streak that even Lexa would vie for.)]
[Markus is perhaps one of the most empathetic androids that could've been pulled to this version of Earth. Mired in emotion and even a bleeding heart on the best/worst of days, it is hard to detach himself from emotion. From feeling. It's the very reason he's driven to guide his fellow androids, to declare to the world they that are alive. Feeling.
Pragmatism is relative on a good day. Pragmatism twists itself up to fill a mold without meaning to, when applied to a cause. To idealism.]
I don't need either of us to reiterate that we're allies, Clarke. That we're friends. I know that we are, and I'd never willingly seek for that to change.
But you can't take a gun up in someone else's stead. You can't be willing to kill in the name of the group, when the group hasn't had its say. That's unfair.
I wish I always had a chance to have a conversation in the first place about that.
[She hasn't. Only Jasper believed she had a choice in Mount Weather, but it was never quite that way. She knew what would have happened to her people if she hadn't taken the final resort there. Hadn't chosen to do that.
Either way, she won't accuse Markus of naivety. That's unkind, and their experiences are different.
Hers just don't tend to leave her any options. And she's tried, again and again and again. She's tried.]
The floor is open here, isn’t it? If it ever comes to that point.
[He won’t assume that she doesn’t try, that she doesn’t wish for otherwise. That was the whole reason why guilt pervaded in the first place, is Markus’ guess. But he can already begin to see the line that divides them, a partition that separates manner of character, idealism, and morality.]
If you ever want to talk about… any of this, Clarke, I’m here to listen. Even if I can’t change your mind, it’s the least I can do for you.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
@markus.manfred
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I do.
This is about what happened when I cured you.
[To the point.]
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[Straight to it, and Markus won't bog down the exchange with anything unnecessary.]
It's been enough time now. I thought you might want to talk about it.
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Though it may be that I should be asking you some.
Like what may have happened to androids back in your world. I never asked.
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But you're turning the subject in my direction, when the reason I texted you was out of concern for yourself.
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But Clarke wants something direct, something clarified from the beginning. Knowing her personality, or what he thinks he knows of it, this doesn’t surprise Markus.]
Do you feel guilty about the way you went about helping me?
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Yes and no. Not for the reasons you'd think.
It bothered me that you made an excuse for it. For what I kept from you. I wasn't under any influence. I just knew what had to be done. What I've had to do before.
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[The whole experience was like fire blazing through his memory — burning bright and impossible to forget, but so many details lost in the heat and the flame. And eventually the sorrow.]
Because I implied it would’ve been reasonable for you to protect yourself, even at the risk of harm being done to myself?
[No. He must’ve missed something.]
Or because you think I didn’t recognize your willingness to commit to what you had chosen to do? You said it was easy for you.
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[So, the last part.]
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Why?
[A mind made for empathy, to understand others, churning.]
Have you done something like that before?
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But that is neither here nor there, as it's not relevant.
The people of her world know that she's a killer. A murder.]
The people of my world call me Wanheda. It means "Commander of Death."
There's a tradition in my world by the people who were on the ground waiting for us. Lexa's people. Those who kill mark themselves on their backs for the number of lives they take, both to honor themselves as warriors, and to honor those who died.
Even if I were from that culture, my back would never be big enough to hold the marks for the lives I've taken.
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“Death” is too far — beyond a line he can’t comfortably step over, not without becoming that man who had been enveloped with rage, dug up by betrayal and a lack of self control.]
Because you believe it to be necessary.
[That isn’t a question, obviously not framed as one. Hard to approve, but harder still to truly judge — the two mingle and lose themselves in each other, neither winning. ]
Even if there are no marks adorned on your body for each death, they’ll leave traces on you in other ways. You’ve already mentioned it: the guilt.
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Before I got here, I was alone. Separated from my people. I had no one else to be responsible for, so I didn't have to be that anymore.
The moment I was here, I looked for a gun. It's who I am, Markus. What I have to be for my people.
For you.
[Because like it or not, Clarke absorbs people into that identity. She always has.]
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[The mark of hypocrisy, maybe. But Markus can give this advice easily to others, so detached from the complications centered and his own identity versus his role.]
You always have a choice. Even if you’ve only known one thing for your whole life, a single way of functioning, this doesn’t mean it’s all that will ever define you. Change can be wrought from your own hands, but only if that’s what you really want.
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[Did she? It's debatable, lost in the haze of everything that's come before for her. She was sent to the ground (she had no choice). She had to take care of everyone because they weren't prepared (she had no choice). She stepped up into leadership alongside Bellamy, hoping to keep everyone alive (she had no choice).
And when she's tried to give up, she's been dragged back.
And here, now, she sees that things can be different. Would Bellamy really force her back into that? She doesn't think so, but it's who she is.
So, in that, her words become true.]
If I told you the same thing, would you turn your back on people? On me?
That's rhetorical, of course. I know you couldn't.
I don't intend to let the people who did this to us live, Markus. Because otherwise, they might do it again. That, too, is a choice. I made it not long after I got here.
[And now, she reveals the truth. This is who she is. That's what she's declaring to him. Her goal of keeping everyone alive—of helping them survive—is the same.
But that means that when they're done, they're done. This doesn't happen again.]
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But that night, in the junkyard, pulling himself out of some wretched trench of mud and rain and lifeless pieces of his own people, he made a choice. Among the rusted groans of a derelict freighter, androids huddled together in shadow, he made a choice. Made the conscious decision that if he had to be weighted down by a purpose greater than who he was as an individual, it would be formed by his own hands and no one else’s.]
I wouldn’t, because I’ve decided that for myself. If I’m confined to my own role, it’s something I’ve built for myself, too. Does that make sense to you?
We don’t know if that’s what it’ll come to, Clarke. You’re choosing a path that still lies too far down the horizon to see.
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But you see, don't you? How the difference in what we do makes it a choice. In how you and I see things. No, I don't need to go this way, but this is what I've consigned myself to.
That doesn't mean it's easy. But I carry it.
That's why I needed you to see who I was that day. Who I am now.
[Connor had tried to tell Clarke that it didn't have to be this way, too. But it's a part of how she lives, how she breathes. How can she be anything else? How can this go any other way?
Either way, it's a lot to ask someone else to accept the lives taken on their behalf. It had killed Jasper. But no matter what guilt she carries, she doesn't stop.
She is, as ever, Wanheda. Being here has only made that clear to her.]
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[He understands her meaning, that obligation to those who are alike, those you care about, those you have to protect else you become marred and marked by failure. Markus feels that obligation, too, but Clarke is right — they’re different in approach and idealism, and it’s no surprise that Connor’s advice would reflect his own. The tendrils of the revolutionary’s influence.]
But I think that isn’t the point.
You want me to know this about you, but why? Is it because we’re allies? Or is your guilt making you justify yourself to me?
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Yes, it's guilt. Partly, anyway. Anyone in my world knows who Wanheda is.
But there's a more direct reason. One day, I may point that gun at someone to help all of us. As an act of the alliance between us.
I was seeking out alliances, Markus. It's the best means of coming up against an enemy, before you begin to call people friends. I just ... tend to do both before long.
[Despite Lexa's initial words when they first began to interact, Clarke has never been able to disassociate from other people. That's why she can't bring herself to make the choice that could give her peace: stop killing. Pretend none of this matters. She started once. That's the life she knows, and the tint of coloring that is all around it.
Nothing can, or will, change that.
If she and Markus are to be friends and allies, Clarke knows her hand may be forced someday. It doesn't take much. He'll have to accept the actions she chooses to take on his behalf, just as she had to do the same when Finn took actions on her behalf.
(No, she would never blame Markus for her actions, just as she doesn't blame herself for Finn's. But as much as Markus is an android, she suspects his ability to disentangle himself from that feeling is rather human.
Perhaps she's wrong.
Perhaps being inhuman in that way gives him a pragmatic streak that even Lexa would vie for.)]
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Pragmatism is relative on a good day. Pragmatism twists itself up to fill a mold without meaning to, when applied to a cause. To idealism.]
I don't need either of us to reiterate that we're allies, Clarke. That we're friends. I know that we are, and I'd never willingly seek for that to change.
But you can't take a gun up in someone else's stead. You can't be willing to kill in the name of the group, when the group hasn't had its say. That's unfair.
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[She hasn't. Only Jasper believed she had a choice in Mount Weather, but it was never quite that way. She knew what would have happened to her people if she hadn't taken the final resort there. Hadn't chosen to do that.
Either way, she won't accuse Markus of naivety. That's unkind, and their experiences are different.
Hers just don't tend to leave her any options. And she's tried, again and again and again. She's tried.]
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[He won’t assume that she doesn’t try, that she doesn’t wish for otherwise. That was the whole reason why guilt pervaded in the first place, is Markus’ guess. But he can already begin to see the line that divides them, a partition that separates manner of character, idealism, and morality.]
If you ever want to talk about… any of this, Clarke, I’m here to listen. Even if I can’t change your mind, it’s the least I can do for you.
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